KAMPALA — The Rwanda government has deported Ugandan IT expert Ivan Peter Egessa two months after he was arrested and detained in Kigali.
Rwanda intelligence officials on Thursday, February 13, 2020, drove Egessa to the Ugandan border at Mirama Hills in Ntungamo district with an order declaring him an unwanted immigrant.
“Take note that you are declared a prohibited immigrant in Rwanda within the meaning of articles 12 and 15 of the law Nº 57/2018 of 13/08/2018 on immigration and emigration in Rwanda,” a deportation order issued by Francois Regis Gatarayiha, Rwanda’s Director General of Immigration and Emigration, read in part.
Egessa, a software engineer, went missing on December 8 last year in Kigali, with his family saying they had tried and failed to locate him through the Rwandan authorities. The Uganda government in January filed a formal complaint to Rwanda over his disappearance. However, Kigali did not respond.
The disappearance of Egessa in Rwanda came at a time when relations between countries are frosty amid accusations and counter accusations of illegal detention of either country’s citizens by the respective security agencies.
The frosty relations escalated in February 2019 when Rwanda closed its border with Uganda. Several efforts to resolve the fallout are yet to yield fruit. Several Ugandans who have crossed the border to Rwanda have been shot dead by Rwandan security forces on accusations of unauthorised entry.
